


If They're Green or They're Blue

by compo67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Stanford Era, Time Travel, dean/thomas - Freeform, the christmas cottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 02:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has no idea what to do with himself while Sam is at Stanford. He stumbles across a painter, a red scarf, and a smile so similar he can't let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If They're Green or They're Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago for someone on tumblr and just recently bought my own copy of The Christmas Cottage. I have yet to watch it (tonight?!) but when I do, I'll probably add to this. It's too cute not to. Not sure when they will happen because I have three other fics going on right now, but hey, at least I've rescued this from tumblr.
> 
> Enjoy!

He didn’t mean for it to become a thing. When he had a coffee mug handed to him that was, according to Thomas, “The one you always use,” Dean knew it had become a thing.

Sometimes he’d arrive covered in blood and grime from a hunt; caked in Colorado mud or with socks still damp from Oregon rain. He had a routine—along with the coffee mug—that was his and only his. He’d sit on the slightly uncomfortable, definitely questionably held together bar stool Thomas set out for him. For someone used to moving, he surprised himself by sitting there for hours at a time, watching Thom bleed onto canvas in such a way Dean Winchester had never known anyone could.

And sometimes he’d arrive clean but drunk. Thom never said anything—he had a lot on his mind, more than just mixing paints. Dean understood that. He had a lot on his mind too, and those a-lot-on-his-mind things liked to crawl out of their box and work their way onto the back of his eyes, the forefront of his mind, eating away at gentle tissue. They made him think of Sam, who looked like Thom. Or maybe it was Thom who looked like Sam. Dean didn’t want to try to think it through; he couldn't explain the rabbit hole that led him here and he didn't want to. But when he arrived clean, without any grime, it was from another sweep across Palo Alto, checking in and beating back his own need for more.

Those nights Thom took a few extra pauses, stepping away, eyes scrutinizing the half-finished piece. He’d step back and lean on Dean’s shoulder, eyes never straying from his work.

“Stay tonight,” Thom murmurs now, in that way of his. In the Sam-like way that causes Dean to simultaneously stiffen and relax. He can’t explain it. Nor can he explain how Thom has pressed what is now his mug back into his hands, refilled with warm, black coffee. And he definitely can’t explain how Thom’s red scarf is lazily hanging over his shoulder, too, like a shared security blanket.

Dean Winchester does not do security blankets.

He tugs the scarf away from Thom and wears it on himself. He gives his reply in one word and Thom goes back to painting.

Lifting the mug to take a drink, Dean closes his eyes. He pays attention to the sound of Thom mixing or dabbing or blending, brushstrokes still coltish and new as he stretches what talent he has into something more permanent.

He’d never meant for this to be a thing.

 


End file.
